


Catch Me in Your Afterglow

by DroppedAllTheseOreos



Series: Just Two Bros [2]
Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-09-26 05:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17136194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DroppedAllTheseOreos/pseuds/DroppedAllTheseOreos
Summary: Graphite gets to surf with Kiriya all the time, but he doesn't really get towatchhim surf. The blindness hinders that a lot, so they try to find a way around it.





	Catch Me in Your Afterglow

**Author's Note:**

> Title is lyrics from Afterglow by Lydia Persaud

“I wanna watch you surf.”

Kiriya made a confused noise. “But we surf almost every day.”

Graphite rolled his eyes. “No, idiot, I wanna watch…” He made some vague gestures like he was rolling something in his hands. “When you do tricks and stuff like that. It’s kinda hard to look back when I’m always heading straight into shore.”

“Oh! Yeah, true.” He nodded. “I guess you could, like, watch from the shallows.” Graphite opened his mouth, but Kiriya held his hands up defensively. “I’d probably fall off before I even get to you, so it’s all good.”

He quirked an eyebrow and stayed put. “Oh my God!” Kiriya shouted skyward. “I’m serious, that was a total accident! I _promise_ I didn’t mean to run you over with my board that time. It was a total accident, I swear. Fuck, I mean, I've run myself over with a board, so I get it, it sucks!”

Graphite remained unmoved.

Kiriya rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “What do you want from me?”

The merman gave him a skeptical look but started swimming to shore, kicking up a little splash of water with his tail in Kiriya’s general direction as he left.

“I’ll think of something!” He called over his shoulder.

Kiriya shook his head fondly and paddled out to try catch a wave suitable for showing off.

Once in the shallows, Graphite regretted everything about this decision. It was mid-afternoon, so the sun was in the perfect spot to be directly in his already sensitive eyes. He cursed himself out for deciding to ask this now of all times as he squinted against the light, using his hands to partially shield himself. When Kiriya caught a swell, he could barely make out anything. He’d manage to catch a glimpse of a familiar red every once in a while, but his eyes tired out quickly, unable to track the splash of color.

But Graphite wasn’t one to give up easily, and the next hour or so was marked only by his struggle to try and watch his friend. By the time he decided to give up, his eyes were watering, and pain was shooting through every nerve. It felt like someone was driving an urchin needle through his eyes and into his brain over and over. He flung himself backwards with a huff, lying there with his hands over his eyes, and most definitely not pouting.

Eventually, he heard the familiar hiss and splash of Kiriya’s board coming to a stop and his body dropping into the water. After a few more moments of splashing noises, Graphite moved his hands to find a shadow covering him from the sun’s vile rays, wobbling and distorted beneath the water. He sat up slowly, Kiriya still standing in the light’s path to him.

“You okay?”

Graphite snarled. “Absolutely perfect.”

“Ah, so pouting is the merperson expression of happi—”

Kiriya choked on the metric fuckton of seawater Graphite managed to splash in his face.

“I wasn’t pouting, shut up.” Feeling a small sense of pride that he actually managed to hit his target.

Kiriya’s only reply was to hack up some water, and Graphite took that as a win. That is until Kiriya slumped down into the water to catch his breath, taking away Graphite’s only source of protection from the sun, giving him another eyeful of agonizing UV. He swore and clutched at his face again.

“Karma, bitch.” Kiriya managed to rasp between coughs.

Graphite just rammed his shoulder blindly towards the comment but ended up falling in the water. Before they even got themselves together, the attempted strike turned into more roughhousing. He kept his eyes tightly shut as he struck out at noises he thought were Kiriya. But it was clear who had the advantage, with functional eyes and being able to mostly breathe again; when he wasn’t laughing at Graphite, of course.

After many, many fruitless strikes and struggles to grapple each other in the surf, they had finally worn themselves out and collapsed into the wet sand. Graphite took note that Kiriya’s board was slowly floating out to open water before he draped his forearm over his aching eyes. He mentally promised to swim out and get it back if he could convince Kiriya to bring high-quality fish to their next meet up, but right now, he just wanted to lie in the sand, letting the breakers wash over him. It was nice, just listening to the waves and wind.

The calm feeling was broken when he felt Kiriya’s eyes on him. He turned, arm still thrown over his eyes.

“What do you want now?”

“Wanna meet at night tomorrow?” Graphite’s mouth twisted into a frown but Kiriya went on. “Like, no big reason or anything, but I got an idea I think you might like.”

Graphite considered him and sighed through his gills. “Well, I am more awake at night, so it might be nice.”

He made a big show of really debating it, just waiting for the board to float further out to sea and to tease the lifeguard. Graphite never really got opportunities to get on his nerves, so he was gonna make the most of this.

Kiriya let out a frustrated noise “C’mon man, just answer the question—”

“I’ll come,” Graphite said quickly, holding up a hand to shut him up. “But only if you bring me some of that really good ahi since you’re gonna be cutting into my hunting time.”

Kiriya grabbed his hand, maneuvering it into a brief handshake. “It’s a deal.”

A few moments of comfortable silence pass between them as they settle back into the sand. Kiriya sat back up for a moment, took stock of his board slowly making its way across the Pacific and flopped down with a groan.

“Could you get my board, too?”

“Not part of the deal.”

Graphite smirked as Kiriya let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a whine. “Dude, please.”

“Sounds like you’re pouting. As a merperson, I see that means you’re happy about it, right?” Kiriya sat up with an offended sound, shoving at Graphite’s shoulder and startling a laugh out of him. “You know what you gotta do to get it back right?” He grinned.

There’s a frustrated sigh above him.

“I live with someone who makes contracts for a living, Kiriya, I know my way around wording a deal.” He felt Kiriya’s glare still on him. “Think of it as payback for all those times you talked me into stupid things.”

“When you say that you mean the time you got run over.”

“There’s been other times.”

Kiriya took a breath, and a tenseness filled the silence between them. Graphite watched him with an expectant smirk as the quiet stretched to an awkward length. Kiriya glanced over to him and exhaled forcefully, shaking his head.

“Fine, I’ll bring salmon, too.” He looks back to Graphite with an exasperated smile. “I swear I’m gonna go broke surfing with you.”

Graphite wiggled in the sand, a smug little grin set on his face before he rolled back into the water, swimming after the wayward board.

…

Being awake at night was so much better than during the day, Graphite mused while he lounged around in the shallows. He was naturally wired to sleep during the day, so he went through afternoon surfing sessions in a sleepy haze sometimes. He still enjoyed it, and now that surfing was mostly muscle memory, it was easy to get through the day with only half his brain cells. But now, everything felt clearer. The light from the moon wasn’t nearly as harsh as the sun, so shadows and reflections were much softer, allowing him to see a little bit more than usual. His focus just felt sharper as well. Almost as if being up at the right time helped his entire body function better, huh. If only his brain could get with the program and let him sleep when he needed it.

He perked up at the sound of footsteps shuffling through the sand. Well, at least he got delicious food and a friend out of his restless days. Graphite let out a sigh as he admired what he could make out of Kiriya’s wetsuit as he approached. It was almost as if he could actually look a person without physical pain when they didn’t wear blaringly bright colors in the sun, what a concept. If only Kiriya would wear it all the time.

“Hey!” He called out since his arms were full.

When he finally got to the high tide line, he dropped his board, and half flopped, half sat in the sand. He opened up a hard box thing, and when he pulled out the fish, Graphite realized it was a food carrying thing—he never really bothered to ask the name— and faintly missed the soft cloth one that Kiriya would usually bring. The texture and colors on it were calming. The sadness was only momentary as he snatched the fillets and started tearing into them. Kiriya let out a laugh and started pulling some other things from his bag.

“Why did you wanna meet at night?” Graphite said around a mouthful of fish. “I mean, I know you said no big deal, but you don’t usually wanna do this because of work.”

Kiriya proudly thrust a cylindrical object towards him. “This is why!”

Graphite stopped eating altogether to stare at Kiriya judgmentally. Before he could think of a snide comment, Kiriya gripped it in both hands and snapped it, making a loud crunching noise. Instantly, a faint purplish-blue glow backlit his hands. He shook it a little and held it out again. Graphite winced at the brightness, and Kiriya grimaced apologetically, shading it with his hands.

“It’s a glowstick. I figured if the sun was hurting your eyes too much, maybe coming at night and wearing these would be easier to watch.”

He unzipped his wetsuit a little and shoved the glowstick in the arm area, the light was almost completely obscured except for a small blue glow where it was stretching the material.

“I should’ve tried this at home,” he mumbled, before grabbing something else out of his bag.

It was a circular thing, and it made an awful hissing and squeaking noise when Kiriya unraveled it a little. He tore at it with his teeth, wrapping a length of shiny cloth-like stuff around the glowstick and then using it to attach the glowstick to his arm, so parts of the stick were still visible. He zipped his suit back up and attached more lights to his limbs. After he finished that up, he took out some similar looking tubes, but they were much thinner than the ones lighting him up with an ethereal bluish glow. He cracked all of them at once.

These little tubes were dimmer than the ones Kiriya had on and were in a bunch of different colors, pink, green, yellow, red, blue… Graphite blinked at the strange bouquet Kiriya was pointing at him.

“These are for you! Thought you might like some of your own.” He grinned. “Pick one and tell me where you want it!”

Graphite pulled out the red and green ones and held out his wrists. “Um, here, I guess?”

Kiriya fumbled with the sticks for a moment and used a little rigid piece of plastic to hold the glowsticks in place once they were looped around his wrists. He used the rest of the sticks to make some other impromptu jewelry with Graphite’s directions.  The first was a circlet using the blues, then a necklace with the pinks and yellows, and finally making a couple more bracelets with the remaining reds and greens, secured around his wrists.

“You look great,” Kiriya chuckled.

Graphite flinched away when a sudden light hit him square in the face. After he got his bearings, he growled at Kiriya.

“Did you just take a fucking picture?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Kiriya—”

“Well, we’re here for a reason, so let’s do that!” Kiriya threw his phone in his bag and ran into the water with his board, paddling out as fast as he could.

Graphite’s first impulse was to chase him, but that would mean dropping his food. He didn’t get to eat non-sandy food that often, and he lost track of the food storage thing with the camera flash. Throwing away the chance to eat something good over another petty fight would be a waste. He let out a growl, but let Kiriya win this one.

He watched Kiriya paddle out and belatedly noticed that it was easy to track him. The soft blueish glow against the moonlit ocean was surprisingly nice, it reminded him of the bioluminescent creatures that would stray from the depths to hunt or mate in the warmer months. When he stopped, it was a little closer in than they usually would wait, but Graphite didn’t have to strain as much to see him.

Kiriya seemed to struggle a lot more than usual. Graphite couldn’t be sure, maybe it was Kiriya’s easygoing and confident nature that made it look like surfing was effortless, compared to how much he was starting and stopping whenever a wave came in. He let out a soft gasp when Kiriya finally managed to stand on the board but was immediately launched into the water. There was a sharp bark of laughter when Kiriya’s head popped back out of the water, descending into a howling cackle. Graphite could make out a faint holler of “that sucked!” between peals of laughter and felt himself smile, letting out a chuckle of his own.

Graphite eventually found the thing with the fish in it and tore his way through all of the food before Kiriya finally got into a rhythm and started riding the small swells with the prowess Graphite initially expected from him. There were still a few times where he misread the ocean and went hurtling into the water, but for the most part, he was practically flying across the tides. He’d build up some speed, then suddenly turn the other way, sending explosions of seafoam and water everywhere in his board’s wake, glittering like swarms of firefly squid as they reflected the light of the glowsticks. Every wave he’d manage to catch was fleeting, their momentum dying quicker than when they rode bigger waves further out, but he was able to read and ride them more often, keeping the energy of his improvised show up so Graphite never really felt bored watching him.

There was a moment where Kiriya finally seemed to click with the motions, pulling off a sharp pivot in the middle of a breaker. Water flew up in graceful arcs all around him as he continued to spin in place, the glowsticks creating a spray of slowly falling stars around him. Graphite watched fervently, trying to carve the image in his memory since he’d never seen anything quite like this—all until he moved to slam his board back onto the water to ride out the momentum he created, but it launched him into the water instead. He took in a moment to absorb the moment before breaking down into cackles. It was so surreal he couldn’t help but laugh, here was Kiriya, looking elegant and suave as fuck for what had to be less than a second before he was getting flung into the cold embrace of the ocean. An echoing bark of laughter joined him as Kiriya’s head popped back up over the water.

He kept going after that, but nothing really lived up to the intensity of that one moment. Graphite kept watching him fervently, hoping he’d get it again as the glowsticks grew dimmer and dimmer. They were almost dead when Kiriya took notice and started to paddle back in. Graphite was grateful, though he’d never admit it, he was beginning to have trouble picking him out in the darkness. Once he was out of the water, he collapsed near Graphite.

“I’m so glad I have the afternoon shift tomorrow…” He mumbled into the sand.

Graphite let him rest, but when his breathing slowed to where he might actually pass out right there, he nudged Kiriya’s leg with his tail a little. Kiriya jolted awake. He blinked, wide-eyed a few times before groggily setting himself back up, his entire front now coated in a thick layer of sand.

“You have to actually get back home if you’re gonna make that shift, idiot.” He poked at the sand caked onto Kiriya’s cheek and it crumbled away.

He groaned but got to his feet anyway, brushing away more sand from his face. Graphite dumped the melty ice from the food thing into the sand and started removing his nearly dead jewelry as Kiriya toweled off. Once everything was decently dry and sand-free, he took his bag behind an outcrop of rocks to change into his regular clothes. When he returned, he was looking conscious enough that Graphite wouldn’t worry about him getting back home safely.

“So… See you tomorrow?” Graphite offered as he helped Kiriya shove his stuff into his bag.

Kiriya let out a soft sigh. “We’ll see.”

He gave Graphite one last tired little smile and brushed his damp hair out of his eyes before turning and making his way back up the sort of path to the street.

Graphite watched him climb up as far as he could see before Kiriya started to blur with the rest of the scenery. He took a breath, just letting the events of the night wash over him before slithering into the water, wondering about how to spend the rest of his time, and hoping that he could catch some sleep tomorrow morning.


End file.
